‘Cracker’ Coalition health policy on the way: Dutton

Opposition health spokesman
Peter ­Dutton
has promised the Coalition will reveal a “cracker" of a health platform but some details will have to wait until much closer to the election date of September 14.

Mr Dutton was questioned on ABC ­television on Monday morning about a report in The Australian Financial Review in which he said health was a lower campaign priority for the opposition than ­asylum seekers, the cost of living and the carbon tax.

“Our policy is ready to go. I’ve been working on policy with stakeholders in this portfolio behind the scenes every day over the past five years. We will have a cracker of a policy as we did at the last election," Mr Dutton said.

“We’ve got a lot that we will announce at an appropriate time but I will not be ­lectured to by the Labor Party on when our announcements will be made. If you try and get a front-page story at the moment it’s pretty hard, with
Kevin Rudd
and
Julia Gillard
’s Days of our Lives episode that knows no end. We’ll make our announcements at a time that suits us."

In an announcement on Monday night in conjunction with Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott
, Mr Dutton pledged to quarantine funding of the national medical research body, the National Health and Medical Research Council, from any cuts.

The Coalition also pledged to simplify the assessment process for research grants, and extend the grants from three to five years, to provide “greater career certainty".

“The Coalition has listened to our medical researchers who have said that existing guidelines and processes are cumbersome, costly and inefficient," the two said in a statement. “If elected, a Coalition government will streamline the grant application process and simplify the way the NHMRC assesses research grants. Furthermore, we will move swiftly towards a nationally consistent approach to the way clinical research ­trials are overseen and conducted."

The Coalition’s pledges mirror some of the recommendations made by former Australian of the Year and businessman
Simon McKeon
in his Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research for the federal government, published earlier this year. In the report, Mr McKeon recommended a streamlining of the grants process through a triage system, prioritising those applications which are most likely to succeed.

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The Coalition has pledged to cut the number of bureaucrats in health, to privatise Medibank, repeal means-testing on the private health insurance rebate and “review" Medicare Local health centres if elected.

Mr Dutton has also promised not to cut front-line medical services, although the government claims Medicare Locals are staffed by some front-line health workers.

In question time last week, Health Minister
Tanya Plibersek
attacked Mr Dutton for not being forthcoming on election policies. “He is happy to put politics ahead of patient care," Ms Plibersek said.

“We need to have a debate in this country about health services: a party that invests in front-line services and the party of Medicare that has always stood for equal access to necessary health services versus a party that has cut to the bone, that killed Medicare once and that would kill Medicare again if they had half a chance," Ms Plibersek said.